Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 32

Lifting her as best he could in his arms, he paused an instant to consider what had best be done. One thing was certain, neither house nor hut was safe until time showed the temper of the survivors. Yet help and remedies of some sort he must have, and shelter too from storm and night. He thought of Kirpo, but decided not to trust her. A lucky decision, since to seek her would have been but waste of time, as, recognising her husband among the rioters, she had fled into the jungle with her child. The servants might be found if fear had not dispersed them, but where in the meantime was he to leave Belle? At last his thoughts returned to the old Khan. He was faithful, and if he had recovered might at least keep watch while Philip sought other help. Besides, not far from where he had left the old man, Philip had noticed a reed shanty built against the abutment of the dam, and so hidden from the sight of all save those coming from that side. He determined therefore to carry Belle thither, and if he could find Mahomed Lateef to leave her in his charge. This was no easy task, for Belle, unconscious as she was, proved an awkward burden over such a rough road, and it was a great relief to be able to lay her down at last in comparative shelter and a.s.sure himself that she was still alive; for, as he had struggled on, the dead weight in his arms had filled him with apprehension. The next thing was to find the Khan.

Here fate proved kind, and within a few yards of the shanty Philip came upon him, battling against the wind yet finding breath for a running fire of curses on all idolaters. To cut short his grat.i.tude and explain what was wanted took but a moment; the next saw Philip hurrying towards the house again, since, if the rioters returned, time might run short. It did, despite his hurry, so that after vainly searching for the servants, he was still rummaging for more ammunition and (most potent weapon of all) for money, when the sound of advancing voices warned him to be off. Thanks to the almost blinding dust there was little fear of being seen in his retreat; yet when, on reaching the shanty, he found Belle still quite unconscious, he recognised that the most difficult part of his task had yet to come. He had brought back a few comforts s.n.a.t.c.hed up hastily as he made his escape, and now set to work to force a few drops of brandy down her throat, wrap her in warmer garments, and chafe her cold hands and feet. To do so he had to unclasp the fingers of her right hand by force and withdraw something she held in it. This, without giving it a glance, he slipped into the breast-pocket of his coat and so continued his efforts. After a time her colour became less deathlike: she moaned once or twice, turning her head aside as if to escape from some distasteful sight; but beyond this there was no change, and the hope of her recovering the shock sufficiently to aid in her own escape seemed very slender.

Nor did Philip wonder at her collapse when he thought of what it must have been for her to stand by helpless, and see those who had left her in anger swept away into the unforgiveness of death.

"_Huzoor_" whispered the old Khan, who in deference to inviolable custom had been sitting with averted face in the doorway, where, shivering from the chill of the wind through his wet clothes he had been considering the position carefully, "We must get out of this. To sit here will have us crippled with ague by dawn. There is my pony; I will go fetch it from the huts. Perchance they may not see me; perchance they would not touch me if they did, for Ramu--the man I killed, _Huzoor_--hath no blood-kin in these parts, and death cools friendship. Besides, their wrath will be only against white faces.

When I am gone ten minutes, lift the _mem_, and make for the dip in the south road by the _nullah_. If all goes well, you will hear hoofs ere long. But if these fools are set on blood, make your way as best you can due south. Eight miles, more or less, keeping the left bank till you see a square-towered house. Give this to the women; they will obey it."

He took the talisman signet from his thumb, and slipping it into Philip's hand left the hut. The next ten minutes seemed interminable; and the relief of action when it came was great. This time Belle proved an easier burden, when wrapped closely in a shawl and lifted leisurely. Once amongst the tall tiger-gra.s.s in the _nullah_ he rested his knee against a high tussock and still holding her in his arms waited anxiously, for he was now on the direct route to the house and liable to come across a straggling rioter at any moment. The risk, however, had to be run, as the only available bridge over a cut from the river lay a few yards further on. Sheltered by the high gra.s.s, Philip's eyes were practically useless to him, and the pony's hoofs being deadened by the sand, it needed a low whistle from the Khan to bring him out on to the road beside the pink-nosed pony.

"Give me her here, across the pummel, _Huzoor_," said the old man briefly. "Your legs are younger than mine, and time is precious.

So, gently! _Mashallah!_ I have seen women carried thus before this!--women who gave the rider more trouble than she is like to do.

Now, if you are ready, _Huzoor_; for though 'tis dark enough there will be a blaze ere long. Those low-caste, pig-leather-working dogs had got to the _sahib's_ brandy-bottles, and you know what that means."

"Did they try to stop you?" asked Philip, when after crossing the bridge in silent anxiety they struck into the comparative safety of the jungle.

The old man grunted softly, his anger tempered by the necessity for caution. "By the twelve Imaums they said I was afraid!--_I_, Mahomed Lateef Syyed!--that I was sneaking away! And I,--I never even called them pigs."

Despite his anxiety Philip could not resist a smile, partly of confidence, for no better proof of the Khan's resolution to bring Belle safely out of trouble could have been found than this unparalleled meekness. So they went on swiftly. Philip at the bridle-rein, the old Khan supporting Belle partly on his arm, partly by a dexterous arrangement of his scabbard, over which the old man chuckled as if in contented reminiscence of bygone days. "'Tis as I said, _Huzoor_," he remarked pointing to a red flush rising behind them. "That is the bungalow roof. 'Tis well she is out of it so far."

Philip thinking of all the horrors of the past few hours, and contrasting them with his memories of Belle in her pretty home, clenched his hands, wishing _he_ were nearer. Perhaps the Khan's sympathy saw to his thought, for the old man went on in aggrieved tones, "And we get no good from it. Not even an honest set-to when the women are safe; for to-morrow the _tahseeldar_[9] and the police will spoil sport. Besides, these shovel-diggers will be afraid of their own actions by dawn! Even now we are safe; safe as if we are driving down the watered road of a cantonment, our only care to convey this poor soul to woman's hands. _Inshallah!_ The women have the best of it in your reign, _Huzoor!_"

"Well! some one will have to answer for the day's work," replied Philip grimly.

"Some _one_. Ay, that is to-day's law, and even of that I know not,"

grumbled the Khan. "For look you, Ramu and none else killed the _sahib_, and I killed Ramu, so that is done. The rest were peaceable enough, G.o.d knows, and you hang not for the bursting of _bunds_ (dams) and burning of bungalows. There is no justice nowadays!"

It was past midnight ere the pony pulled up of its own accord at a ruinous door, and the owner with mighty shouts and much impatient rattling of his sword-hilt on the panels roused the inmates.

"Come forth, Fatma," he cried to the white-sheeted form muttering faint excuses which appeared at length. "Heed not the stranger to-night,--Haiyat also. He is my brother, and this, look you, is my sister. We will carry her within to the women's room, and ye must see to her as women should, and bring us word of her state speedily. 'Tis best so, _Huzoor_; Fatma is learned in woman's lore and hath simples.

She will tell us if there be hurts or danger. For to-night the _mem_ had best stay here, since there is nought to be done save rest."

"Not so, Khan _sahib_; I must return and see after--"

The old Mussulman raised his right hand solemnly. "Let the dead rest in peace also for tonight, _Huzoor_. I saw Raby _sahib_ fall, and I know how dead clay toucheth the earth to which it returns. The knife struck home, _Huzoor_; right through the heart! Lo, it was Kismet!

Raby _sahib_ is dead, but his slayer is dead also, so we, his comrades, may rest awhile till dawn comes."

"I will wait till dawn," said Philip, "and hear what the women say."

So the Khan disposed himself to sleep with the calm of an old campaigner, and Philip sat out in the warm night air waiting for the dawn. The storm had ended in weak-minded thunder and a few spots of dry rain, which had nevertheless left a freshness behind them. Here and there through the parting drifts of cloud and dust the stars twinkled brightly, making Philip's thoughts turn to a future more peaceful than past or present. He drove the erring fancies back to realities with a certain scorn of himself, but they broke from control again and again with the insistence which truth brings to bear on conventionalities. It was true that by and by time would heal the present trouble; it was true that by and by regrets would soften.

There was no hurry, no thought but pity and sorrow for what was, and yet he started from a vision of peace to find old Fatma by his side.

The Khan had long since been snoring placidly, so the old matron's eyes could look into Philip's with straightforward confidence.

"The _mem_ will do for now, _Huzoor_. There is no danger, none at all.

But by and by, in the months to come, may G.o.d save from harm the child that will be born!"

He rose to his feet white to the very lips. Just Heaven! Was this poor Belle's last legacy!

CHAPTER XXVI.

The old Khan's forecast proved correct in every particular. By noon on the day after the outbreak the ringleaders were safe in the lock-up awaiting trial, and, save for the smouldering house and the yellow flood of water sliding down the old channel, there was nothing to tell of the past night's work. For the dead bodies had been carried to their homes, and the women wailed over them discreetly behind mud walls, as if they had died in their beds. All save John Raby's, and that was making a dismal procession towards the nearest railway station, preceded at a little distance by poor Belle, crushed and but half-conscious of the truth. Philip, riding by the side of the litter, felt there was something exasperating in the absolute insignificance of the whole affair. It almost seemed as if some one must be to blame, as if something could surely have been done to avert so terrible an ending to what was, after all, but a storm in a tea-cup. But then neither he, nor the authorities who had to inquire into the matter, were in possession of that master-key to the whole position which was to be found in Shunker Das's desire for revenge. For he had worked carefully, leaving scarcely a trace behind him; and though Kirpo came forward boldly to declare his responsibility, her palpable motive for spite discredited her statements. Besides, at the very outset of the inquiry, it became clear that John Raby's murder by Ramu had nothing whatever to do with his action in regard to the water; and however absurd the man's jealousy might seem, it was certainly sufficient to explain the rancour with which Kirpo's husband had set himself to conspire against the Englishman. It was evident therefore that the latter had met his death, not from his harshness towards the people, but from the good-nature with which he had originally espoused the woman's cause. Both Philip Marsden and the Khan could only witness to the freedom from all attempt at personal violence on the part of the crowd, even when John Raby had thrown himself among the workers and taken a spade from them by force; while the subsequent burning and looting of the factory was evidently an after impulse caused by the rage of the survivors at the loss of their companions. The whole affair, in short, being one of those perfectly maddening mistakes and misapprehensions which serve sometimes to emphasise the peculiar conditions of life in our Indian Empire.

All this, or most of it, was in due time dinned into the widow's ears by kindly but strange voices; for there was one familiar voice which she dreaded to hear because the owner knew of something which the others did not know: something she could not remember without despair.

So day after day she lay in the spare room of the head official's house,--that spare room which shelters such an odd variety of guests, the travelling Member of Parliament, the widow, the homeward and outward bound, the dying, sometimes the dead--and when Philip's name was mentioned she would turn her head away and beg to be left alone a little longer, just a little longer. Hurt as he could not fail to be at her avoidance of him, he understood the reason of it all too well, and waited patiently. Then the last day of his leave came, and he sent to say he _must_ see her before he left; so Belle, white as her widow's cap, nerved herself for the interview with the man whom she had preferred before her dead husband. That is how, in her abject remorse, she put it to herself. She had chosen her lover. The natural indignation at deceit, the generous instinct, the sense of injustice which had forced her to the decision were all forgotten before the memory of those minutes of delay. How could she meet Philip?--Philip, round whose neck she had thrown her arms while defying the husband whom she had sent alone to seek death! That Philip had refused to play the part she gave him, that he had forced her to play a better one herself, brought her no comfort. She was too much absorbed in the scene as it affected her and the dead man to care what Philip had said or done. The very fact of his entering into it at all was an offence.

She would not consider him in the least, except to tell herself that she was also responsible to _him_ for the loss of his money. To this additional self-reproach she clung firmly, as if to a protection, and when she saw him pausing for half a second at the first glimpse of her in her widow's weeds, she thrust it forward hastily, like a shield against his sympathy.

"I am so sorry," she began coldly, "it was not his fault. He did his best about the money, and now you have lost it all."

A sort of irritated amazement came over him. What did he care for the money? Why should she be fretting over it when his thoughts were full of her,--of her only? He looked into her grief-darkened eyes with a certain impatience--the old impatience at seeing her unhappy--the old eagerness to rouse her into hope. "Oh Belle! what does all that matter? Don't look so miserable over it, for pity's sake!"

She drew her hand from his, slowly, with her eyes full on his face.

"You are fond of saying that. But how can I look anything else when I killed my husband?"

"Belle!" The horrified surprise in his tone scarcely expressed his bewilderment, for he had little experience of women or the morbid exaggerations in which, at times, they find a positive relief. "Belle, what do you mean? How can you say such things?"

"What is the use of hiding the truth from ourselves?" she answered almost with satisfaction at her own self-torture. She had not meant, at least she thought she had not meant, to broach the subject at all; but now that it was begun she threw herself into it with out reserve.

"You know as well as possible that it was I who really killed him; I who prevented your being in time to save him."

There was more pity than amazement in his voice now. "Have you been tormenting yourself with that thought all these long days? Poor child!

No wonder you have been miserable. Belle, my dear, it isn't true. You know yourself,--surely you must know it isn't true."

"I know nothing of the sort," she interrupted quickly, with a dull hard voice. "I kept you, and you were too late. Nothing can alter that. It is the truth."

"It is not the truth," he answered quietly. "If you had but let me see you at first I might have spared you this unnecessary pain. Perhaps I ought to have insisted on seeing you, but--" He went on after a slight pause, "but I respected your wishes, because--"

"Because you knew I had reason to dread seeing you!" she broke in pa.s.sionately. "Because you knew it was I who killed him! Because you were afraid! Don't deny it, Philip; you knew,--yes! you knew why."

He stood before her, manly and strong, pitiful yet full of vexation.

"I will not have you say such things--of me at any rate, Belle. I will not even have you think them of me; or of yourself either. In your heart of hearts you know they are not true. True!--they are lies, Belle, wicked lies. You have been working yourself up in your loneliness to believe something impossible, preposterous, and it is my fault for letting you be lonely. I was not too late. No power on earth could have saved John. I was there armed, ready; the Khan was there also with drawn sword; yet we could not save him. No one could have saved him. _That_ is the truth."

"If you had gone sooner," she murmured, pressing her hands tightly together till the rings on them cut and hurt, as if she were glad of pain, of something to appease her own self-condemnation; "if you had not been delayed, you might have persuaded him to be more cautious."

Philip almost smiled, a smile of vexed surprise at her perversity. "My dear Belle! Am I a man to preach caution when I am opposed? Was John a man to listen to such caution when the time for action had come?

Nonsense! I don't wish to be hard, dear; I don't say, mind you, that the remembrance of his anger is not very bitter--G.o.d only knows how bitter--for you to bear. But, Belle, if he knows anything now, he knows that he was wrong."

"He was not wrong; he was right. I chose you and forsook him."

Philip gave a little impatient shake of his head, then walked away to the window feeling how hopeless it was to argue with a woman in Belle's position. A man was absolutely helpless before such weakness and such strength. Yet, after a pause, he returned to the attack by a side route. "Besides," he said, coming back to where she was seated, and standing beside her resting one hand on the back of her chair, "it was not really you who delayed me. It was something else of which you know nothing. If I had seen you I would have told you, but there was no use mentioning it to others because the man had gone and there was nothing to be done. It was Afzul kept me. He came to my room when I went to fetch my revolver, and barred the door. He wanted me to listen as you did. I think he was mad, but I had to fire ere he would let me pa.s.s. You see it was he who delayed me, not you. One reason why I did not mention it was this: the man was a deserter, but he had saved my life and,--I think--I think he must have been mad."

But Belle made no answer. With her head resting on her hand she was frowning slightly in pursuit of a fugitive memory. "Afzul!" she echoed at last in puzzled tones. "I had quite forgotten; but surely he came to me in the drawing-room. He gave me something and he said something; surely about d.i.c.k! Could it have been about d.i.c.k?"

Her eyes sought Philip's for the first time with appeal, and he was sorry to chill the interest in them with a negative. Yet what could Afzul possibly have to say about poor d.i.c.k Smith? "Hardly, I should think; I doubt if they ever met even at Faizapore. But this reminds me,--you had something tight clasped in your hand when I found you close to the river;--so close,--did they tell you how close it was to death, my dear, when I came upon you lying--Oh, Belle, so close!"

"Something in my hand," echoed Belle coldly. "What did you do with it?"

"Like you I had forgotten," said Philip, recovering from the break in his voice. "I put it in the pocket of my coat when I was trying to bring you back to consciousness in the hut. I dare say it is there still. Shall I go and see?"

Her affirmative sent him away relieved at the more human interest in her face. A minute afterwards he returned with a little brocaded packet looking as if it had lain in damp lodgings. "I hope it isn't hurt," he said lightly; "but having no servant here, my clothes have dried as best they could, and it feels rather pulpy. Open it and see what parting gift that inexplicable compound of fidelity and treachery left behind him. He had a great admiration for you, Belle."